Syria has no control over the site where the alleged chemical attack took place, argues Oxford University historian Mark Almond to RT, adding that the opposition controls the area and Damascus can’t guarantee security or even entry for UN experts.

RT:There has not been any form evidence of this
attack or who is behind it. So why are we seeing such a harsh
condemnation of the Assad government?
Mark Almond: In part it is because key Western governments,
America, Britain and France, want to say “Gotcha”. They have been
demanding the fall of Assad for more than two-and-a-half years
now and it has become increasingly frustrating that his regime
has shown much more resilience that they had expected, despite
the resources that they and the Gulf Kingdoms have thrown into
the war on the other side.

It is also like a distraction from the embarrassment of Egypt,
where we see the European and the US governments basically using
weasel words to avoid any kind of condemnation of a massacre in
the streets of Cairo. So there are both the specifics of Syria
and the context of what is going on elsewhere in the Arab world,
especially in Egypt.

RT:Is it likely that Assad will launch such an
attack at the time UN investigators are visiting Syria and of
course the consequences of the chemical attack anyway?

MA: You have to ask with any crime scene, to whose benefit
is the crime? And the Syrian government would have to be not only
very brutal, but very stupid to have done this in a period when
UN chemical weapons inspectors are just down the road in
Damascus.

Secondly, if they had done this, if they have launched a very
large scale chemical attack, surely they would have sent in
special troops under the cover of the chaos caused by such an
attack to occupy the area in order to precisely prevent the kind
of films and pictures emerging that have been sent around the
world by the opposition. This, after all, is the area controlled
by the opposition. So a further problem arises with the demands
Syrian government permit experts to visit the scene. Syrian
government does not control the scene of the crime, if this crime
is being committed. It is up to the rebels. Yet we see no attempt
to press the rebels to cooperate. So in fact, it seems to be
primarily to embarrass the Syrian government, to say, “Why don’t
you let the experts go to the scene?” where the fact is they
don’t control the scene and therefore could not guarantee their
security or even possibly enable them to enter the area where
these attacks are supposed to have taken place.”

RT:What would the rebels gain for this?

MA: We do have some very radical groups who would no doubt
say, as they have when they have been challenged about using
suicide bombers, killing innocent people, that God will recognize
his own when the dead die, that he will save for heaven the
justified victims and just send to hell the wicked supporters of
Assad. So it is not impossible that somebody has staged this.

One thing we have to remember is that amongst chemical weapons
experts there are considerable suspicions about what exactly the
weapon or the substance has been. If it is sarin gas, which was
supposed to be one of the most deadly nerve gases - why do we see
such various symptoms, why do we see so many people who do not
seem to be affected by the weapon, why do we see people operating
in the area without wearing protective clothing? This is a nerve
gas, it is not just something that kills you if you breathe it
in. It enters through your pores through the skin. So it is that
basic question that the most advertised source of the deaths that
we have seen in pictures does not seem likely to be the weapon.

Secondly, if it is a poor low-grade version of sarin, then
probably it is not made by the Syrian government’s laboratories,
functioning in peace and security until very recently, but
possibly by people using the elements that you find in various
insecticides used on animals which contain some of the precursors
for sarin. That is how Nazi scientists invented sarin in the
first place. They were making an insect pesticide and then
discovered they have found something very deadly, which could be
used on people.

So we don’t know exactly what the weapon is and unfortunately,
because of where it has been used, we can’t really ascertain who
might have used it because there is no independent observation of
the scene of the incident.”

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.